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Tag Archives: perseverance

We had a very short week due to Hurricane Irma, but we still had time for some miraculous things happening in the library. September 15 was International Dot Day, but at Barrow, we also celebrated Grandparent’s Day for the very first time.

These two events fit perfectly together because it gave grandparents and grandchildren a space of time to share conversations, stories, creativity, and think about how we are all making our mark in the world.

The morning started in the cafeteria with a donuts and coffee event organized by our amazing PTA. Well over 300 grandparents & children gathered in the cafeteria and shared table conversations around these questions.

Then, I shared Matt De La Pena and Christian Robinson’s Last Stop on Market Street. I loved sharing this grandparent story about seeing the beautiful in the world. So many grandparents came up to me to talk about how much they loved this story and how much it meant to them to hear it. I was so worried about choosing a book for a crowd this large, but this one spoke to so many.

Following the story, I showed the table conversation questions again and invited families to stop by the library to record some of their conversations using Flipgrid. The library was filled with grandparents and grandchildren. Several did record their stories, and there are so many special moments in the videos. I hope you’ll take a moment to listen, react, and respond to some of them.

Grandparents and grandchildren also sat down together all around the library reading stories to one another. Some visited our Lego wall and build creations together. Others took coffee filters and design collaborative dots in honor of International Dot Day.

After grandparents left, our day continued with many classes coming to the library for Dot Day. We of course read The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds, but we also read The Book of Mistakes by Corinna Luyken. I loved how these two books paired together. Both spread the messages of getting started, persevering, making a mark and seeing where it goes, and realizing the potential that is hiding inside you. During the stories, we had conversations about what it means to make your mark on the world and students shared many of their ideas of how they are already making their mark.

After each story, students practiced the idea of physically making a mark on paper and seeing where it took them. Students took a coffee filter and made one mark as a symbol of starting and then each students continued the dot creation to see what emerged.

I loved walking around and seeing the individuality of each student and dot. No two dots looked alike even though every one started with just one mark.

Sometimes it’s hard to explain Dot Day to people who haven’t heard of it, but when you experience the story, conversations, and creativity that are made public on this day, it brings Dot Day to life in a whole new way.

How did you make your mark on Dot Day? What did you try that was new? I hope that this year (and next) I can continue this conversation between students/families about how we are all making our mark in the world.

Our 5th grade is currently studying the impact on American life that several famous inventors had. When I was brainstorming with Shelley Olin, 5th grade social studies teacher, we began to wonder about connections these standards had to makerspace. It started as an idea seed and grew into a set of experiences for all 5th graders to engage in.

I wanted students to put themselves into the shoes of an inventor so that they could begin to understand the perseverance and curiosity that inventors have. We focused on 3 of the inventors: Thomas Edison (electricity), Alexander Graham Bell (communication), and the Wright Brothers (flight).

I prepared 3 centers on electricity, communication, and flight. Each center included a biography about the inventors, instructions for an activity, and a clipboard to leave wisdom for the next group to learn from.

For flight, I selected some paper airplanes that could be made from a full sheet of paper. I also included books about other paper airplanes.

For communication, I created 2 choices. One was to use littlebits to create a tool for communicating using Morse code. I included a buzzer and LED bit as well as button, pulse sensor, and slide dimmer bits. The other experience was to create a tin can phone. I provided coffee cans and cups and various kinds of string.

For electricity, I copied instructions for making a simple paper circuit using a coin battery, led light, and copper tape. I put materials in Ziploc bags so each group would have what they needed to create a circuit. I added extra led lights for tinkering beyond an simple circuit.

It took a long time to prepare all of the materials for 3 back-to-back 5th grade classes. I had to have everything ready for an immediate turn round between classes.

Before coming to the library to engage in some makerspace activities related to these themes, students read about each inventor in textbooks and on PebbleGo. They gave Ms. Olin their top 2 interests out of the 3 themes so that she could put them in groups.

In the library, we started by looking at the littlebits invention cycle. There’s not just one place to start in the cycle and it doesn’t necessarily follow a linear sequence. We talked about how students could start with “create” by following the directions that I had given. Then they could play with their creation and begin to remix ideas to create an improved version or an alternative invention. By the end, I hoped that they would have something to share with the rest of their class or group. It really seemed like it could be linear in talking about it, but I quickly saw that it is very fluid.

After our quick intro, students sorted into their chosen task and got to work. Luckily, Ms. Olin and other collaborative teachers joined the class during this session. At times, we had me and 3 teachers supporting students around the library. It was 3 very different activities, so having the extra support was beneficial.

What I quickly saw was how much students wanted to just jump in and put things together without reading directions. At paper airplanes, students started folding paper in all sorts of folds and testing them out.

At paper circuits, students were sticking down tape and connecting the led to the battery without reading the instructions or even formulating a plan.

At tin can phones, students immediately started connecting cans.

But…as I stepped back and thought about it, isn’t that really what inventors do? They don’t necessarily have a set of instructions to follow. They just try things out to see what happens.

After some initial tinkering, several students did in fact try to read the instructions and many said that they wished they had read them at the beginning. It was an important lesson that we talked about and learned from. It’s hard to read all the instructions before putting something together when all you want is to see the finished product. I do that myself as an adult.

One thing that was really interesting was when students finished their first prototype and they started remixing. One example at the tin can phone center was when 2 groups decided to combine their two phones and see if they could make a four-way call.

At the paper airplane center, students started combining their planes together to see if a combination would create a better flying plane. They were truly embracing the idea of remixing.

When we came back together at the end, I asked students to think about what it was like to be an inventor. We had some great conversation about perseverance, staying calm through frustration, trying again, problem solving, and taking plenty of time to invent. We circled back to our inventors and considered how much time, frustration, and perseverance they each put into their inventions. I think the experience gave the students a greater appreciation for the inventors they were learning about rather than just passively reading about them.

We even had a moment to talk about continuing inventions in our makerspace or at home and entering them into our school maker faire coming soon. I loved how a simple idea from a social studies standard was able to weave together growth mindset, literature, social studies, and makerspace all into one experience.

Today is a very special book birthday. Kate Beasley’s Gertie’s Leap to Greatness is now on bookstore shelves. This is Kate’s debut novel and we are so excited to have her coming to our school on the book’s birthday thanks to MacMillan and Avid Bookshop.

About the Book

How would you feel if your mom lived just a few streets away yet had no interest in seeing you or talking to you? That’s Gertie Reece Foy’s situation. It doesn’t matter, though, because she has a plan, and Gertie never gives up on a plan. Gertie is a firecracker of a girl. She takes matters into her own hands and makes a plan to be the best 5th grader in the entire universe. She thinks that if she gives the best summer speech and become the best 5th grader in the universe, her mom will realize that Gertie is so awesome that she doesn’t need a mother anyway or possibly even come back into her life. Gertie has something standing in her way: a new girl named Mary Sue. Both of them have what it takes to be standout students, but their battle for the top results in even more struggles for Gertie to deal with. This is a book filled with friendship, school and family challenges, and summer adventures. You’ll be laughing out loud, cheering Gertie on, and crying along with her too.

Gertie is a character that I just want to hang out with. She is full of wit and adventure and can take just about any situation and make the best out of it. She does all of this even with a gloomy situation hanging over her. I think about my role in education and how a student like Gertie might slide by unnoticed as having a challenge to deal with. She isn’t one to reach out for help because she thinks she has to handle it all herself. How do I recognize those students? What opportunities can I give to students that allows them to shine and be the star that they are? I love how even the stern Mrs. Stebbins recognized the potential in Gertie and gave her a moment to shine.

I’ve been reading the first two chapters of Gertie to our 3rd-5th graders, and it is pure magic to read aloud. Reading aloud is a sure way to see how a book connects with multiple readers. It only took a few sentences into the book to have readers hanging on every word, laughing at the opening scenes in Aunt Rae’s kitchen, and begging to go on to the next chapter. I know this book will become a favorite of many of our students.

Going Above and Beyond

This book made all of my students think about people from their lives that are always giving their all. Together, we thought about the many “great” people in our lives. Students in 3rd-5th grade were able to write down their great person on a Gertie’s Leap to Greatness card and we displayed them in our library windows.

I have so many great people in my life: family who are always there for me, volunteers who give their all to keep our library program running smoothly, and librarians who push me to be a better librarian.

One of those many librarians that I look up to is Nikki Robertson. She is the picture of perseverance, determination, and never giving up. She is 100% awesome, not from concentrate just like Gertie Reece Foy. I can’t really comprehensively name all of the things that Nikki does, but here are a few:

Presenter at national and international conferences including ISTE and AASL

What stands out to me about Nikki is her willingness to go above and beyond for the good of all educators and students, not just herself. Here’s an example.

Recently, Google Hangouts on Air transitioned to Youtube Live. Many people in education use this tool and were really worried about how the changes would affect them. Nikki jumped right in to figure out the new tool. She shared her frustrations, reached out to other people for ideas, and ultimately figured out how to easily use Youtube Live just like Hangouts on Air. She could have kept all of this new knowledge to herself, but instead she made a step by step visual tutorial on how to easily setup Youtube Live, and it saved me from agonizing over it another second. I immediately used it to teach my BTV crew how to setup the new way of doing our morning broadcasts as well as assisted a fellow friend in a Youtube Live event we were doing for Dot Day.

Nikki also goes above and beyond for her students. Her high school library is buzzing with activity and it’s all about giving the students a voice. Nikki designed custom Snapchat filters for her library and had students and herself immediately having fun in the library and embracing the power of social media. Her makerspace is a bustling place where she empowers her students to deeply explore specialized topics in making. She engages her students with creative interactive displays such as inviting students to spell out the word “hope” and share what hope means to them. She does a personal shopper program to put the right books in the right readers’ hands. All of these things are in addition to the fully packed schedule of classes that she teaches. The list just goes on and on. The bottom line is that Nikki Robertson never gives up on any mission she starts for her students, teachers, and network just like Gerite Reece Foy.

Get the Book

Who do you know that goes above and beyond? I invite you to leave a comment, share on social media, or do your own blog post. Be sure to get yourself a copy of Gertie’s Leap to Greatness at your local indie bookshop. You can always order a copy from our local store, Avid Bookshop.

Leap with Gertie

While you’re at it, when you get your copy of Gertie, take a picture of yourself leaping with the book and post it to social media with the tag #leapwithgertie Take a look at Kate & Cassie Beasley leaping along with students from our school.

Recently, the Children’s Theatre Troup directed by Kelsey Brown presented “Another Kid’s Treasure Island” at the State Botanical Garden of Georgia. This play also featured a makerspace activity for attendees to use a variety of objects to make something new.

Gretchen Thomas and her UGA students helped pack hundreds of plastic coconuts with craft supplies to support the play, but several coconuts were left over. Our makerspace was fortunate enough to acquire these leftover coconuts for students to explore.

This week, we’ve been reading The Most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spires. I love the message that this book shares about perseverance and creativity. The character in the book tries multiple ways to make the thing she has in her head, but she just can’t get it quite right. At first, she easily starts over, but as time goes on, she gets pretty frustrated. However, even then, she goes on a walk to clear her mind. While reading the story, we paused along the way to setup some steps for “making”.

Have an initial plan after you gather your supplies

Try to make something

Take a look at what you’ve made and try again if needed

If something isn’t working, try to do it in a different way

If you start to feel frustrated, take a break or a walk, and come back

Don’t quit

We could keep adding to this list, but those were the basic principles we followed.

I showed students one of the plastic coconuts filled with supplies and told them that their goal was to take the materials and make something new. We talked about how the girl in the story made something she could actually use, so they certainly could try to make something like a piece of jewelry, a hat, a container for rocks, or whatever else they wanted.

I also put out some scissors, glue, crayons, and markers. Then, students got to work. Each student had a different strategy for how to work. Some got very frustrated and did indeed take a walk around the library. Some students collaborated with people at their table or traded supplies with a friend. It was loud and messy, but I heard things from students like:

Is makerspace always this fun?

Do we really get to keep the things that we made?

When can I come back?

From a teacher: My students talked about what they did with you the whole next day.

You could look at this and say….sure….this is just making a craft, but there’s really so much more there.

Perseverance, problem solving, creativity, inventing, collaboration, and more were all there. Thank you to Gretchen Thomas for giving us an opportunity to bring makerspace to some of our grades who haven’t had a chance to use our makerspace quite as much. We have a lot of new students excited about finding more opportunities to use the tools in our makerspace because of this opportunity.

March 2nd is always a special day for our school. We have a long tradition of having guest readers for all classrooms in honor of Read Across America and the birthday of Dr. Seuss. The goal is to have two readers for every classroom. This allows more connections to the community, more books to be heard, and also more people in case we have people who are unable to come.

Courtney Tobin is a parent volunteer at our school who organizes my library volunteers. She also creates a Signup Genius for events like this one. She puts 2 slots for every class, and we start sending it out asking for readers. The link is put in my library newsletter, library facebook page, and grade level parent representatives send it out to lists of parents. I invite district leadership including our superintendent, public relations, and board of education members.

As the event nears, we always have empty spaces still left, so we repeat sending out the link and send it to additional places like the UGA Athletic Association. Usually be the day of the event, the list is full and we have people who show up who didn’t even get to sign up.

We gather in the library, and readers check in with Kim Ness, another wonderful parent volunteer. She does this while I’m helping with morning broadcast. Readers select a Seuss book from our library collection and my personal collection and socialize and practice reading. We gather for a group picture and a huge thank you for taking time to celebrate reading with our students.

It’s always fun to race around the school to try to catch a glimpse of the smiling faces in every class and the community readers having such a great time sharing stories.

For the remainder of the day, we continue our Skype connections with other schools around the country. This is a continuation of our World Read Aloud Skypes.

Today, we connected with:

Shannon Hyman in Glen Allen, VA and her 3rd grade students to read Be a Friend and Mother Bruce. Their teacher was a big UGA fan!

Lisa Lindeman in Babylon, NY and her 5th grade students to read Snappsy the Alligator

Terry Freyou in Coppell, TX and her 5th grade students to read Be a Friend

Sarah Staudt in Mason City, IA to read Mother Bruce

Donna MacDonald in South Burlington, VT and her 1st grade to read Snappsy the Alligator

Dana Susko in Santa Barbara, CA and her Prek to read The Day the Crayons Came Home

Carol Scrimgeour in Essex, VT and her Kindergarten to read Snappsy the Alligator

It is always a magical day connecting on Skype because the kids share a story across the miles and make connections with another school. I love pulling up a map and talking about how technology not only lets us see and talk to people in other places, but it helps us literally connect the dots between our locations and know in real-time how long it would take us to get there. We’ve talked about tolls, traffic accidents, construction zones, megabus, and alternative routes along with our celebration of great stories.

We’ve also encountered technical difficulties. One school had to cancel due to the internet being out in their school, but it was a life lesson that when something doesn’t work, you just carry on. When we connected with Lisa Lindeman, we could not get Skype to connect us. We tried multiple times but communicated in the chat. We finally decided to give Google Hangouts a try. She had never used it, but she was willing to try. It worked like a charm, but more importantly it showed our students and teachers in both states that we weren’t afraid to fail, back up, and try something else. Life isn’t smooth, and things don’t always work out, but we can’t just give up easily when something is frustrating or hard.

We have been participating in Hour of Code since it started 3 years ago, and it is an event that inspires so many things within our school. This week-long event coincides with Computer Science in Education week each December. Code.org partner with numerous organizations to offer one-hour tutorials that are appropriate for multiple age groups. When we first started Hour of Code, I tried to get students to all try specific tutorials, but many of our students have gained some confidence with coding and problem solving over the years. I wanted to offer more choice this year and continue to focus on perseverance, problem solving, and collaboration in addition to learning some pieces of what it means to code.

On day 1 of Hour of Code, our 3rd grade came 2 classes at a time. This meant 45-50 students in the library with their computers. It’s a big group with lots of energy, but it amazes me how they settle in, don’t give up, and support one another. I also had a 5th grade group and a second grade group during the day.

We started by sharing some things we know about coding. We also talked about how many of us love video games or apps. Pretty much all hands went up, and we pondered the questions: “What if the people who invented Minecraft (or insert any app or game here) gave up before they finished the game?” We also pondered how many games are currently being invented out there that we don’t even know about and how many of the developers will persevere or give up. It was an interesting way to set the stage for our work for the day.

I offered these as a starting place, but students were allowed to go to any tutorial they wanted to attempt. My main rule was that I wanted them to really stick with whatever they picked and give their best try.

Students spread out around the library and got to work. It took a few minutes to settle in, but all students stayed focused on the Code.org site. I loved how they very naturally got up and helped one another when they got stuck. A few students reached a point of frustration where they needed a break, so I pulled all of our coding books from the library as a place to go and take a break to just read about coding until they were ready to go back to work. At some point, they all went back to their computer.

I also loved that some students who speak other languages saw that they could switch the language on the Code.org tutorials. Rather than flipping back and forth to Google Translate, they could read the site right on their screen, and these students were over the moon with excitement and were extremely successful in their coding.

The Code.org site was very reliable on our first day. In the previous 2 years, we’ve had problems with the site crashing or being slow, but day one went really well. I had some backup plans though. One of the other activities that students were able to do in small groups was visit our Finch robots, which are on loan from Birdbrain Technologies. Students worked alone to use Snap to program the robot to maneuver around the floor. There wasn’t a specific task other than to explore what the robots could do and what each block of code meant. Some students had the robots congregating together on the floor or even doing a dance together. It was fun to see what they came up with in such a short amount of time.

As usual, teachers observed students who struggled in academic areas suddenly find a spark with coding. I hope that seeing some of these students’ excitement will spark ideas for all of us in how we might use this momentum to connect to curriculum content. We can’t dismiss the tools that get students excited about learning. We need to embrace tools like Minecraft and the expertise that our students hold in these tools and consider how these might enrich the work we are doing together in school.

Since the first day of school, students have been asking me when our makerspace will start up. Last year, we developed a great collaboration with Gretchen Thomas and her students at UGA to hold an open makerspace that students could visit on a weekly basis. UGA is now in full swing, so we are finally ready to start our collaboration again.

This year, Gretchen has an eager class of students who will be coming in groups of about 4 every Tuesday and Thursday. Rather than have every piece of the makerspace available right away, we’ve decided to focus on different aspects so that students develop some knowledge about the parts and gradually move to making choices about what they are really passionate about. Students signup on an open signup sheet hanging outside the library. There are 10-12 slots in three 30-minute sessions. Each day has two choices.

Eventually the UGA students will plan activities to bring, but for now, they are introducing things we already have in the space. For our first session, I was excited to have Carlos and Carlena offer their craft. Their story has grown so much since my first post about a craft they discovered in a magazine. Just this week, Carlos and Carlena shared their craft during our Dot Day celebrations by telling Sherry Gick and her 2nd graders how they are making their mark by teaching others how to make this craft that they discovered. I loved seeing them grow from an uncertainty of their interests to finding something they are excited to read about, make, and share with others.

The UGA students in our makerspace this week brought supplies to do this beading craft with students as one option. Carlos brought even more beads to use and shared his expertise with students in the makerspace as well as people just visiting the library with their mentors.

This aspect of our makerspace was very successful and calming.

The other choice was to use the iPads with our Sphero robots. Students were so excited to try out Sphero this year, but we ran into lots of problems. First, the Spheros didn’t charge like they were supposed to. Then, they were all connecting to random iPads instead of the one they were supposed to be connecting to. Luckily, we had Sterling Bailey with us who had helped in our space last year. He stay cool and collected through the whole epic failure and continuously thought of things he could try. He helped the students to push through the frustration and keep trying different things to get their Spheros to connect and work. While it wasn’t successful on the programming side of things, I think students learned a valuable lesson in maintaining patience in frustration and persevering.

We are ready to try again every Tuesday and Thursday through December!